THE CREATION OF SPECIES 



to note differences between various specimens of a 

 plant that to the ordinary observer are unrecogniz- 

 able and his original intuition, aided by long years of 

 experience, enables him to select the one specimen 

 among thousands that will lead him straight to the 

 mark. So he succeeds where a less skillful experi- 

 menter might fail utterly. 



Then, too, he has those other essential character- 

 istics of the successful man, untiring energy and un- 

 bounded patience. Where another experimentor 

 tries, for example, to effect the hybridization of two 

 species and after three or four failures give up the 

 effort, Mr. Burbank goes on with scores or hundreds 

 of experiments until at last he achieves success. It 

 is thus that he has been able to break down the 

 barriers that seem to lie between different species and 

 to give practical demonstration to the fact, which 

 philosophical biologists have more and more clearly 

 recognized in theory, that the word "species" is a 

 term invented for human convenience rather than the 

 expression of anything fundamental in nature. 



But from first to last, let it be repeated, Mr. Bur- 

 bank operates by selecting what nature has supplied. 

 Aside from the bringing out of latent qualities 

 through cross fertilization, he makes no claim to 

 create characteristics, or to do anything beyond bring- 

 ing into the foreground propensities that have been 

 subordinated in a given plant. At most, he unites old 

 traits into new combinations. By shrewd prevision 

 and intelligent management he virtually creates new 

 species in a few years; but his entire method of work 

 is a practical exemplification of the methods through 



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